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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22845031">Let Me Listen a Moment Longer My Love</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/NicePlaceToBe/pseuds/NicePlaceToBe'>NicePlaceToBe</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aged-Up Number Five | The Boy, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/M, Kinda</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 16:40:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,848</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22845031</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/NicePlaceToBe/pseuds/NicePlaceToBe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Five’s neighbour is a beautiful violinist and he’s not quite sure how to feel about it. </p><p>Or:<br/>I suck at summaries and it’s a one shot with so many plot holes it could be a sponge. But I wrote it and it’s here so now I must share the pain.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>288</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Let Me Listen a Moment Longer My Love</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>First fanfic so please don’t hate me, constructive feedback is always helpful... </p><p>I own nothing that you would recognise, please don’t sue me</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Five has long since been under the (not-entirely-incorrect) impression that he has a vastly superior intellect to most humans. In acknowledging this, he has also noticed in social situations, that a particular aspect of his intelligence falls short. In these observations, he has also drawn another, perhaps less obvious, conclusion.</p><p> </p><p>How incredibly peculiar it is that everyone is so focused on themselves and how they appear that they rarely realise no one really cares. They say that people act truly themselves when they think no one is watching.</p><p> </p><p>Who ‘they’ actually are, Five has no idea. Though he supposes it’s more the principal of the matter- rather than the intricacies- to be tripped up on. For instance, if it remains true that his ‘true’ personality is best displayed when nobody is watching, it begs the question of who he becomes around other people- an imitation of himself? A droid bound to previous misconceptions and first impressions by fear preventing him from becoming whatever he wishes to?</p><p> </p><p>In addition, if the first statement does not ring false, is he correct in assuming that most people are never ‘themselves’? As they always believe themselves to be an object of observation and thus govern their actions by meaningless social conventions, does this thus imply they are always putting on a show for an empty audience?</p><p> </p><p>Whatever the answers are to these theoretical ponderings, it doesn’t particularly matter. This is all a rather long winded way of saying that Five was the modern-day, socially awkward equivalent of Mr Darcy (had Mr Darcy not possessed a fortune to entice young women to him and it was rather his unfortunately good looks that attracted them) and struggled very much to contain his blunt inner monologue (up to the point he simply stopped trying) and he was perfectly fine with that.</p><p> </p><p>However, other than his awkward manner and his rather comparable facial expressions of both smirking and resting face of looking like a rotten fish was being shoved up his nose, Five Hargreeves had very little in common with Jane Austen’s darling Darcy.</p><p> </p><p>In spite of this affirmation, there is one more similarity that can be drawn between the two dark haired males, (though Five would rather hammer a nail through his hand or drink mediocre coffee for the rest of his life than admit he was, in fact, smitten). Because, of course, there was a girl; as there so often is.</p><p> </p><p>In Five’s case, this was not an often occurrence. But, when it came to Vanya, it seemed whatever used to be his normal now had no bearing on how he would respond. Case and point, (other than every interaction he had ever had with her) the night he first heard her.</p><p> </p><p>Five was exhausted. Being the youngest professor at a prestigious university was a difficult feat to accomplish in itself. Being in the maths department was a true show of both his mulish stubbornness and his love for numbers. Becoming so directly out of a degree funded by a maths scholarship- from said university- and barely taking a month’s break before throwing himself back into the numbers and theories he loved so much was borderline insane.</p><p> </p><p>So Five could admit, (if only to himself, in the dark of his apartment, with no one around) he was tired.</p><p> </p><p>So he could perhaps forgive himself for ruffling his usual impeccable appearance- loosening his tie, running a hand through his dark, gelled hair and pulling off his suit jacket. Maybe he could excuse letting out a sigh inside the sanctuary of his own home and letting his apathetic mask fall away as he rubbed his hand across his face. Being physically and mentally drained however, would not pass as a plausible pretence as to why, when he heard music filter into his apartment, his first thought was <em>‘If this was a horror movie, this would be the point where the murderer would start sneaking up on me’. </em></p><p> </p><p>His apartment was on the third floor and he had locked his door behind him, so it really was a strange thing to focus on, especially as he had never felt unsafe in his less upmarket neighbourhood as a 6-foot tall white male. But the absurdity of the thought caused him to focus more keenly on the melody wafting through his open kitchen window, like the smell of flowers and sunshine on a midsummer’s eve.</p><p> </p><p>It was a string instrument, of that he had no doubt- he would say violin if pressed, though he couldn’t attest to knowing and hearing the difference between a violin, viola and cello.</p><p> </p><p>The song caught his attention most of all though, it was a tune Five remembered well from his childhood- murky as it was.</p><p> </p><p>The tender tones of the instrument mellowed his attitude and he somehow found himself swaying gently in time, recalling his nanny’s (Grace, his mind supplied as images of what his sister called ‘retro-style’ skirts and dresses swirl in his imagination, along with her heels and golden halo of hair that sometimes- as he was slipping off to sleep or unconsciousness after a gruelling lesson with <em>Reginald</em>, because he didn’t deserve the title of a parent- sometimes made him think she was an angel sent to look after him and his siblings in that lonely, horrible house) voice wishing each of them goodnight.</p><p> </p><p>She would give Klaus a hug because he was always the most tactile of them all, and she would read Ben a bedtime story no matter how old he was, because he always wanted to escape into the words. Grace let Allison tell her own bedtime story, usually filled with glamorous actresses and starlets and true love if Five remembered correctly, because Allison always did like to write her own story and wasn’t opposed to the sound of her own voice, especially if it was a distraction from everything else.</p><p> </p><p>Luther and Grace used to talk about what exercise Luther had done that day and she always let him ramble on about his workout plan because he was like a golden retriever with too much energy and no games or toys to spend it on in their allotted free time. Diego and Grace were the closest, she would hug him and let him talk though his stutter and tell him she loved him before smoothing his covers down and switching off the lights.</p><p> </p><p>With Five, Grace was gentle (she always was). Sometimes he would talk just to empty his head of all his studies, sometimes they would sit in silence, with Grace sewing and he would be captivated by the easy way she could move her fingers and create something bigger.</p><p> </p><p>But as she drifted between his and his siblings bedrooms at night (especially after <em>Reginald</em> had decided a snap inspection of his home-school was necessary and had observed Grace teaching the six of them) she would hum a tune, that tune, the one he could hear coming from the apartment below his.</p><p> </p><p>It was sweet and short and he almost wanted to call up and ask one of his brothers or sister to see if they knew what it was called, if they remembered, while simultaneously never wanting for the song to fade out.</p><p> </p><p>As it did draw to a close though, a few words struck a chord in his memory- something along the lines of ‘<em>give the heart and something to me and something could aways be something hose’</em>. It was enough that with a quick google search he found ‘La Vie En Rose’, but listening to a recording held nowhere near the feeling, the memories that his string-instrument-playing neighbour (he assumes) evoked.</p><p> </p><p>The silence that filled his apartment following the performance was light with nostalgia and he couldn’t help but wonder which of his neighbours was musically talented, and quietly hoped that it wouldn’t be the last time he heard them.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Sure enough, it was a matter of days before he arrived home to the opening strains of a gospel hymn he vaguely remembered from their religious unit as children- more a formality than anything really, <em>Reginald’s</em> treatment and the power structure they operated on in the house was more than enough to prove to Five that he didn’t want anyone or anything to ever be able to hold power over him (not when all authority figures were complacent in their charges’ emotional turmoil and isolation).</p><p> </p><p>‘Vaguely’ was apparently a relative term to Five though, because a bar or so later he was listening, raptured, to ‘Amazing Grace’. But it seemed that the musician wasn’t as content in the music as Five, because the sound shuttered abruptly to a stop.</p><p> </p><p>Surprised, Five stood and wandered over to the window as a slightly faster-paced melody replaced the jazzy tones of the previous piece. He would try to identify it but his attention was instead grabbed to the apartment below his.</p><p> </p><p>Five’s apartment building was in one of the seedier parts of town, and while it was by no means a crime capital, he wouldn’t advise walking the streets alone at night. It was for this reason he thought his apartment was cheaper than he expected- and it was. Partially.</p><p> </p><p>The other part of that reasoning was that the building itself was slightly structurally unsound, in the way that his plumbing was always leaking, there was cracking in the on the interior walls he was too wary of to touch and said walls were so thin they didn’t properly house his window, so it jutted out slightly on the exterior wall.</p><p> </p><p>All of this is rather useless information, except for the fact that because of this window phenomenon, when Five stuck his head and shoulders out the kitchen window to try and pinpoint the source of the music, he could see (at rather a shallow angle, but see all the same) into the apartment below his (which apparently had been more well-thought out than his, because that window was safely situated inside the wall) through their window that was one level down and about four meters to the right.</p><p> </p><p>And so, when we wade through all this irrelevant information it comes down to the point that Five could see into his downstairs neighbour’s apartment when he stuck his body out the window at an awkward angle, enough that he could see the musician with their (what he now could identify as a) violin, which promptly caused him to slip further out the window in surprise, catch himself and then withdraw so he could reevaluate his life choices.</p><p> </p><p>Because she wasn’t just a brilliant violinist. She was effortlessly, breathtakingly, unattainably pretty. When he had caught sight of her, she had been smiling while she played- she looked confident and at ease with herself in a way Five wished he could be.</p><p> </p><p>Confident, in a brash, stubborn manner? Sure, he could do that, but being relaxed? Being <em>happy</em>? He’d been on high alert all his life and now he didn’t quite know how to stop, how to settle.</p><p> </p><p>The woman had brown hair and a ghostly pale complexion and moved fluidly as she drew the bow across the strings, but she almost glowed with contentment. It was with a start that he noticed she was playing ‘Hey Jude’ and he idly wondered at her song choices, which were all fairly modern compared to the usual pieces most commonly associated with the violin (all grand classical movement, Tchaikovsky and Vivaldi and Brahms, not so much the Beatles).</p><p> </p><p>He shook the thoughts off and closed his window with a snap.</p><p> </p><p>Now was not the time to get distracted; he had equations to do and colleagues to impress, there was no time for women who played the violin beautifully and brought back the best memories he had of times long past. So he buckled down to continue his equations, effectively blocking out the music- though it didn’t stop his subconscious, as he slipped into sleep, from bringing the haunting melodies back to act as a soundtrack to the storylines of his dreams.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Five agonised over it for ages. Back and forth a thousand times before he squashed his ego, threw it into the darkest recesses of his mind and acted before it had a chance to reemerge and remind him exactly why he shouldn’t engage with other people (because <em>you’re not good at it and it’s easier to act superior rather than face the fact you have no friends outside your adoptive siblings, Five</em>). So, the night after he saw her for the first time, he wrote her a note and slipped it under her door on his way out.</p><p> </p><p>It was a simple ‘<em>You play wonderfully</em>’ but he could feel his heart pounding all the same as he practically bolted down the stairs.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>All day at work, he was fidgeting and unfocused with pent up energy that when the resident patronising thirty-year-old misogynistic, superior twat threw out,</p><p> </p><p>“Hey Five, having withdrawal symptoms there son? I’m sure we can find some cookies for you, I know how kids like those, maybe we can fit in nap time too.”</p><p> </p><p>Five took vindictive pleasure in reassuring that asshole “Thanks Kevin, but I’m fine, just hit a break through in my latest theory I’m sure if you really try hard you can remember what that feels like old man.”</p><p> </p><p>He dropped his self-assured smirk and scowled, “My name is Scott.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll keep that in mind Todd.”</p><p> </p><p>Five could see the gears slowly turning in his brain and as much as he would love to give him a shit-eating grin, he knows it would be a red flag to a bull (he lived with Luther long enough to know unnecessary antagonism, while fun, would only provoke a childish nature rather than a worthy or witty adversary) so he lets himself just sit back in his chair before returning to his sums.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>What with the Brett of it all and the never-ending strings of numbers, Five was so lost in his own head that he almost missed seeing the note propped up next to his downstairs neighbour’s door. He could almost convince himself it wasn’t for him when he sees written in the girl’s elegant script ‘<em>Thank you</em>’ above the question of ‘<em>Who are you? I’m Vanya’</em>.</p><p> </p><p>It was entirely absurd and weird and juvenile but Five felt his heart thump in his chest- ‘<em>She wanted to know his name</em>’. A little part of his brain (sounding oddly like Allison) cooed before the larger logical part of his brain rebuked ‘<em>Yes because she got a strange anonymous note under her door in a weird neighbourhood’</em>, wincing internally at his awkward, <em>stupid</em> idea.</p><p> </p><p>Fortunately, the tiny sliver of his emotional brain was too distracted wondering over her name (<em>Vanya suited her so well, it’s unique and pretty and would probably feel nice on the tongue</em>- and ok, that’s where Five draws the line because as much as he appreciates he isn’t normal and is awkward and weird, he will not be a creepy guy who can’t control his hormones around a woman, beautiful or not) to properly respond, so he bundled the note away and continued up the next flight of stairs.</p><p> </p><p>Eating dinner in silence always hit just a bit too close to home (too much like a house full of kids but no laughter, no fun because were they ever really kids?) so Five took some pre-emptive calming breaths before answering the weekly Wednesday sibling phone call.</p><p>Allison immediately pounced on him, amusement colouring her tone as she cried</p><p> </p><p>“Five you’ve graced us with your presence! We’re calling for a vote on where we meet for New Years this year and-“</p><p> </p><p>“I think we should all go on a beach holiday so that’s two votes for a tropical getaway because Ben agrees with me,” Klaus interjected.</p><p> </p><p>“No, I don’t,” Ben calls from the background. “I think you guys should come here since Klaus and I in the same city and are roommates so it’s way easier to keep the Hargreeves drama contained.”</p><p> </p><p>“Allison and I are both in LA,” Luther replied as Five nursed his newly-developing pounding headache.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah but can you guys offer three bars within a block’s radius plus all the tequila Klaus could afford?” Ben retorts and Diego, who’s been silent up until now adds</p><p> </p><p>“I gotta say, this is all making Klaus’s beach offer. look pretty tempting...”</p><p> </p><p>Since they weren’t religious or particularly sentimental, the Hargreeves really didn’t see each other very often, especially with them all over the place. Allison found her feet in LA as a lawyer (she always was a master manipulator and Reginald had started each of them on their paths young- young enough that they knew what they wanted to be before they knew they wanted to leave) and Luther followed her there to open up his own gym (Five would hate to tell them it, but he was proud of them for getting up and out of that house as fast as possible and that they had somehow managed to stay so close).</p><p> </p><p>Klaus and Ben were attached at the hip, so straight from neighbours in the same house to roommates and while Ben was still sorting himself out at university (bouncing around degrees, because there was ‘<em>so much to learn Five like holy shit, why didn’t Dad put psychology and philosophy in the curriculum instead of advanced Latin conjugation</em>’; Five privately thought that had he heard about nihilism before he reached university he might have been tempted to simply give up and he suspected Mr Hargreeves senior was of a similar mindset), Klaus was getting a teaching degree in drama and acting because <em>everyone</em> knew that he had enough of a dramatic streak to pull it off.</p><p> </p><p>Diego went into the police academy and wound up in a state far away from his siblings, which maybe suited him best while he settled into life post-adolescence. Five himself knew that distance certainly made his heart grow fonder, and it was easier to love his siblings when they weren’t in the same space 24/7.</p><p> </p><p>So while Five personally hated New Years Eve (a letdown ever year without fail, often requiring awkward family appearances drawn out for hours in the company of people he should probably know the names of but didn’t particularly care enough to take notice of, only leaving him wishing he was an adult simply so he could go to sleep because waiting for the end of an entirely meaningless measurement of time that had no bearing whatsoever on any other aspect of his life and only served to make him feel bitter about his wasted younger years, was not an activity he enjoyed), he would bear it.</p><p> </p><p>Drawn back into the conversation, Five heard a sigh before the appeal:</p><p> </p><p>“Five, vote?”</p><p> </p><p>He let out a hum as he considered where he would rather get drunk off his arse and bring in the new year listening to old, rehashed arguments that came up whenever they all got drunk and they could never resolve entirely (because sometimes things that are broken just <em>stay</em> broken). And on that cynical but characteristic note, Five was about to make his decision when-</p><p> </p><p>“Is someone playing music?” Diego demanded, and sure enough, the musician below him (<em>Vanya</em>, his mind supplied) had once again taken up her bow.</p><p> </p><p>This time however, Five didn’t even remotely recognise the song. Allison didn’t have a similar problem obviously (more up-to-date on pop culture than Five has ever and will ever be) as she proclaimed,</p><p> </p><p>“Paradise, Coldplay, 2011- correct me if I’m wrong. Who’s it coming from?”</p><p> </p><p>“It’s my neighbour, she plays the violin and has a taste for unconventional pieces.” Five jumped in here, while he scrawled down the song name (he was more than willing to trust Vanya’s music taste, and he wondered if this meant there was going to be some more pop music thrown into her repertoire).</p><p> </p><p>Silence reigned.</p><p> </p><p>“Your neighbour?” Luther probed</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, my neighbour.”</p><p> </p><p>“Who is playing the violin-“ Klaus began</p><p> </p><p>“Late at night.“ Ben added</p><p> </p><p>“Yes.”</p><p> </p><p>“And you’re ok with this?” Diego burst out.</p><p> </p><p>“I mean it’s not late enough that she’s in violation of her lease and she’s… <em> adequate</em> so I don’t exactly have grounds for a noise complaint.” Five knew his sentimentality would be considered a marvel to his siblings so he stuck to brash and brutal.</p><p> </p><p>Everyone went quiet again before an explosion of noise on the other end of the line</p><p> </p><p>“Five met a girl! Our little boy-”</p><p> </p><p> “She must be some kind of special to deal with him-”</p><p> </p><p> “That’s so rich, we shared a house for 18 years and if I made more than a slight racket I swear-“</p><p> </p><p> “-all grown up, listen to how embarrassed he is-“</p><p> </p><p> “-and all it takes is some girl to get Mr Stick Up His Ass to loosen up-“</p><p> </p><p> “-I always knew he just needed to get laid-“</p><p> </p><p> “OK, thank you, you are all wildly incorrect in your assumptions and I’d appreciate you all not acting like it’s the apocalypse because I haven’t made a noise complaint about Vanya.”</p><p> </p><p> “Oooh, Vanya, she sounds pretty, is she pretty?” Klaus sounded like he was fluttering his eyelashes and Five was willing to bet he and Ben were going to call later to roast him for information.</p><p> </p><p>  “I don’t know her!”</p><p> </p><p> “You know that wasn’t the question Five.” Diego threw out</p><p> </p><p> “Aren’t we meant to be organising New Years?” Five redirected</p><p> </p><p> “That’s months away, this is happening right now! I can’t believe Five is finally interested in someone and he didn’t call for advice! That’s like an older sister’s birth right!”</p><p> Five wanted to slam his head against a wall and he would, if not for the cracking drywall</p><p> </p><p> “I hate you all.” Five replied, distracted by trying to listen to Vanya  </p><p> </p><p> “That was weak Five, at least try to sound like you mean it.” Diego responded and Five decided he had fulfilled his duty and his quota for family bonding</p><p> </p><p> “Right I’ll talk to you all next week, maybe the week after if any of you has already sent me pictures of social media accounts affiliated with the name Vanya.” He flicked off his phone, to see it already glowing with notifications from his siblings.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He closed his eyes and let the music wash over him- she played it wistfully, as if there was more she wanted to say than she could ever hope to express. The tempo increased towards the end, crescendoing to a climax but as the last note rang, it felt incomplete; unfinished.</p><p> </p><p> Grabbing his laptop, he searched up the song and while the (now) familiar riff began, the words gave him pause</p><p> </p><p> ‘<em>When she was just a girl, </em></p><p>
  <em> She expected the world </em>
</p><p>
  <em> But it flew away from her reach </em>
</p><p>
  <em> So she ran away in her sleep’</em>
</p><p> </p><p> It was vivid and real and like a mirror reflecting back to himself as a child (‘<em>One day</em>’ he had vowed to himself ‘<em>one day I’ll get out of here and I’ll read my books and watch my movies and get out of this soul-sucking house and I’ll never look back</em>’- he’s still working on that last one, what with Reginald in his ear telling him that youngest professor wasn’t good enough and he was meant to be better Number Five, average is unacceptable). He wonders about the girl who played the song, if Vanya too had wanted to escape from something.</p><p> </p><p> He would’ve just left it be, he really would have- because while everything else he’d done in regards to Vanya had been unusual (if it was anyone else he would have already been petitioning to either get them kicked out or potentially break into their apartment to muffle their instrument and not given it a second thought) he liked to think he would be able to contain himself. But then, a tune that should have been hopefully but was tinged with melancholy drifted to his ears he felt another wave of nostalgia overwhelm him.</p><p> </p><p> The Wizard of Oz had been one of his favourites growing up (the idea that a complete stranger could turn a political system on it’s head, commit murder twice over and still have a fairy godmother helping them home was quite frankly ridiculous, but having an all-knowing dictator turn out to just be a fraud who needed a child to make him look good drew parallels to Reginald Hargreeves that tickled Five’s sense of humour at the time) and one of the first things he did at college was find the 1939 movie adaption and laugh at his father’s representative because they shared the same bushy eyebrows and wide nose. And while Five was by no means a music guru he had always thought that ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ was (while not exactly his style) almost like a lullaby, a reassurance that there is something better out there. But the way Vanya played it- it was like she was grounded and stuck while those blue birds flew away; a melancholy ode to the could-have-beens.</p><p> </p><p>And so Five will only accept that Vanya was, in fact, to blame for him writing another note, stabbing it with a pin tied to string and then dropping it out his window to engage in a weird reverse fishing game with Vanya’s window. Though he will admit that a deciding factor in this rather stupid plan was not only that he didn’t want to walk up and down the stairs again but also that at least she wouldn’t be as creeped out if she knew it was someone from her building, weirded out from how he went about showing it yes, but not worried about a stalker.</p><p> </p><p>It took a few tries to tap on her window and even so, when she open it and pulled the line in, he almost dropped it out of surprise. While he waited for- hopefully a reply that wasn’t just <em>fuck off you creep</em> (which would be justified, he was just such a weirdo <em>why can’t you just not have the social skills of a turnip Five honestly this is ridiculous and the fact that it worked was an entirely unrealistic representation of how these sort of interactions were meant to go-</em>)- he tried (without success) to keep his mind off it.</p><p> </p><p> Vanya, for her part, was surprised by the note that was slipped under her door. She knew she wasn’t brilliant, but to have someone tell her she sounded wonderful was a surprise to say the least. After thinking it over for eons, she left a note by her door after her last violin lesson of the day in her best effort to thank the person for their platitude.</p><p> </p><p>It was strange but Vanya was more curious than concerned. She played during her lessons but recently had taken to playing for fun in the evenings, so she thought she could safely assume that if the note came now, they only heard her at night. When she went to get her mail at 6pm her reply was gone and she felt a small thrill of excitement- she didn’t know her neighbours well but she doubted any of them truly enjoyed her playing; Ms Dirk with all her cats and the PDA positive couple that sandwiched her apartment both seemed unlikely to care whatever she was doing.</p><p> </p><p> So when she started on ‘Paradise’ and let some of her loneliness (from being in a city on her own, surrounded by so many people but still alone and rushing to catch up to everyone only to find they’ve all already disappeared and the homesickness and thinking maybe she should have stayed where she grew up because then, even if she wasn’t happy, she didn’t have to think about the fact that maybe she wasn’t good enough for first chair and could only just hold onto her place in the orchestra) bleed into the song, she didn’t think anyone would notice.</p><p> </p><p>Which made it all the more terrifying when she heard a tapping at her window after she finished ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’- one of her girls was doing it for a talent show and Vanya just had to be sure that the composition was right and if she could change anything to make it easier for her student. She leapt a foot at the sound and threw open the window to pull in a note attached to a bit of string that- if she craned her neck- she could see lead into a window of the apartment above.</p><p> </p><p> In the same chicken-scratch handwriting as before, the note read</p><p> </p><p> '<em>Not that I’m complaining Vanya, but as well as you play, you sound sad. It’s kinda putting a cramp in my style, what with all the raging good times I have up here on a Wednesday night. Call me maudlin, but I think you have something you want to talk to someone about- care to share?’</em></p><p> </p><p> Vanya was thrown for the loop. The compliment left her unbalanced for the sarcasm of the second sentence and the last third that flippantly offered a potential confidant in someone she didn’t even know the name of… it was peculiar. But Vanya had never been one to enjoy settling for ordinary, so flipping the note over, she scrawled her phone number on the back, reattached it to the sting and tugged twice before she could second-guess herself.</p><p> </p><p> It trailed up the wall and disappeared, leaving Vanya to stew in nervous tension and wait.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> Her number. She gave him her phone number.</p><p> </p><p>He was infinitely relieved she hadn’t threatened to call the cops but now he was more concerned about her self preservation skills. Who gives a random stranger their phone number when they don’t even know their name?</p><p> </p><p>(Five thinks his subconsciousness- sounding a lot like Klaus unfortunately- may have rebutted here something about how Five <em>needed to get out more, honestly that’s how you get dates</em> but he ignores it because it’s <em>different</em> because it’s her home and it’s <em>Vanya</em> and she’s talented and beautiful and brave and she deserves so much more than hastily scribed compliments on loose pieces of graph paper, but he shoved that particular voice out of the way).</p><p> </p><p> Picking up his phone, he entered the number and before he could actually consider the ramifications of being his normal blunt, socially stupid self, he sent her:</p><p> </p><p> <b>You should have locks on your windows</b></p><p> </p><p> </p><p> It took a moment (long enough for him to appreciate his awkwardness but not long enough to consider how to fix it) before two replies came in quick succession- one obviously a knee-jerk reaction and the other a justification.</p><p> </p><p> <em>Is this the person above me? </em></p><p>
  <em> I live on the second floor</em>
</p><p> </p><p> <b>Rapists can climb</b></p><p> </p><p>Five clearly hasn’t thought this through because it would be a bad joke in person, but over text it sounds even worse- though he could have sworn he heard a muffled laugh from downstairs</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Did you write the notes?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>What’s your name? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Yes.</b>
</p><p>
  <b> I’m Five</b>
</p><p> </p><p> <em>Like the number five?</em></p><p>
  <em>And I thought my name was weird</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  
  <b>Well Vanya is a lot nicer than Five </b>
</p><p>
  <b> Though that isn’t saying much</b>
</p><p> </p><p> A pause, and as Five cringes he figures there isn’t much left for him to lose.</p><p> </p><p> <b>You’re an exceptional musician</b></p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I’m really not but thank you </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Teaching violin pays the bills </em>
</p><p>
  <em>What is it that you do?</em>
</p><p> </p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <b>In general? I antagonise </b> </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> <b>For money, I’m a maths professor at the university </b> </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Impressive </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Does that make you like fifty?</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Not exactly </b>
</p><p>
  <b>More like a 58 year old consciousness in a 22ish year old guy’s body</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>An old soul? Never would have guessed, what with all those raves you’ve got going on </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Her dry comment caught him off guard and in an effortless way, time somehow just slipped away.</p><p> </p><p>It was easy with Vanya-so easy that he just sort of slipped into banter with her; she countered his cynicism and sarcasm with dry humour and a sort of calming optimism and so before he knew it a month had passed.</p><p> </p><p>A month of late night concerts (suddenly Five knew more musical numbers than he could imagine, ‘Phantom at the Opera’ and ‘Duel of Fates’ and more Coldplay) when Five could hear Vanya’s emotions, a month of ‘<em>how are you’s, ‘go to sleep’s </em>and<em> ‘have you eaten today Vanya, you’re too thin it can’t be healthy to live off take out</em>’ (to which she responded ‘<em>like you can talk with your peanut-butter and marshmallow sandwiches, that’s a heart attack on a plate Five’</em>).</p><p> </p><p>A month of not quite knowing how to tell Vanya that he liked her and a month of enduring his sibling’s ribbing- Klaus with obnoxious flamboyance, Allison harassing him for details, Diego sending him horrible innuendoes at every opportunity and while Luther and Ben were more subdued, it didn’t really mean much in the face of his family’s dramatic tendencies.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> And who knows how long Five would have hesitated had Vanya not confessed she had eaten only a sandwich all day and was unsure if she had any food in her fridge.</p><p> </p><p>It was a bad idea, Five knew that but logic didn’t intersect with Vanya in Five’s mind. So he found himself gathering up ingredients from his cupboards and made the journey downstairs- trying to block out the thoughts that this was the first time they would properly meet, because Vanya’s health was more important than his internalised anxiety. Deep breath, and then he knocked on her door.</p><p> </p><p>Vanya opened the door immediately, even though she wasn’t expecting anyone because she was hoping beyond hope that a pizza guy had somehow gotten lost and would be holding cheesy salvation in a cardboard box at her door. However, instead of a nervous-looking, minimum-wage worker, she was faced with a six foot tall, scowling man who was quite possibly one of the most handsome men she had ever seen in her life.</p><p> </p><p>Sharp cheekbones and thick dark hair that was falling just on the side of disarray after a long day at work and watchful, blue eyes (the colour of those mountains after snow from a distance, almost like the icebergs with a bluish tint- almost but not quite- because at their centre, was gold, streaking out into blue and all of a sudden she was reminded of gumtrees after a sudden shower, and the afternoon sun’s rays reflected off the leaves sending the bronze and yellow into the blue sky behind it and wow, she should not be analysing someone’s eye colour in this depth).</p><p> </p><p>His eyes caught hers and suddenly she seemed to struggle to think with him watching her like that; under the slight iciness was intelligence and amusement and a tenderness that left her breathless.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Her eyes were brown- amber and golden and liquid kindness wrapped up in the warmth that she emanated. Her lips turned up slightly at the corners and a soft pink tinge rose to her cheeks.</p><p> </p><p>“A sandwich is not a day’s worth of food Vanya.” Five found himself saying and her eyes widened slightly before she raised an eyebrow at him (and he shouldn’t find that attractive... but dammit she was the exception, his exception).</p><p> </p><p> “You told me you lived off peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches when you were a kid, looks like you grew up just fine Five.” (Because who else could it be, who else would show up without warning because she mentioned there was no food in her apartment and then scowl through mother-henning her)</p><p> </p><p> “Yes and now I can’t stand still for more than a minute, am addicted to caffeine and haven’t been hungry since 2008 because my body has given up on me. Let’s see if you can avoid the same fate,” he said, smirking as he swept past her.</p><p> </p><p>(‘G<em>rew up fine’</em> she’d said- what did that mean? But there was no time to ponder it now.) He called “Where are your pots and pans?”</p><p> </p><p>Vanya stood, still surprised by the sudden movement and when her brain finally caught up, she could only snort in derision at the idea that Five’s body had ‘given up’.</p><p> </p><p>Driving her thoughts away from that particular ditch, she summarised that now Five was in her apartment, she wouldn’t be able to get him out (just like when he first entered her thoughts and had stayed there, just like he crashed into her messages and her practice time and she didn’t mind, and she couldn’t bring herself to pretend to dislike the idea of him being in her space and interacting with the rest of her life).</p><p> </p><p>The devil himself called,</p><p> </p><p> “Hey Vanya while I slave over a hot stove for you, can we talk about why you answered the door even though you weren’t expecting anyone?”</p><p> </p><p>Vanya decided she was going to need wine for this conversation. A lot of wine.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> It was only after pasta and wine and trading comments back and forth about their respective days that Five found himself sitting on her couch as Vanya told him,</p><p> </p><p> “The reason I missed lunch today was because I was auditioning for first chair in my orchestra.”</p><p> </p><p> “That’s awesome Vanya, how’d it go?” Five remembered her telling him about the first chair, how the old one were leaving and how being first chair was a bit like being the only professor in the maths department with a working theory and thesis.</p><p> </p><p> “I think it went ok. It’s hard to tell, they’re all so stoic,” (She would later find out she got it by a landslide, but I digress). “How about you, Ryan still live and kicking?”</p><p> </p><p> “And still wearing his ass for a hat yes. I swear he’s a caricature of patronising.” Vanya giggled and it turned Five’s insides warm all at once before he continued. “Never mind that though, I was wondering if you might play for me?”</p><p> </p><p>He inclined his head to her violin. </p><p> </p><p>“Any requests?” She asked as she settled herself back into the couch after getting her instrument. Five let a real smile break through as he said in a low voice,</p><p> </p><p> “La Vie En Rose? The one you played the first time?”</p><p> </p><p>Vanya swallowed thickly, that blinding smile that sent her stomach into somersaults and that voice that sounded like sin should not have been blessed onto the same man, lest there was to be any chance of her brain actually functioning around him. Nevertheless, Vanya smiled back at him before she gently lifted her instrument and began to play.</p><p> </p><p> And if Five had thought she was pretty from afar while she played, Vanya was nothing less than gorgeous as she swayed slightly to the music and it was in that moment (when her sweetness melted into the melody and he would have sworn up and down that she was from a different world) that Five thought ‘<em>You could destroy me and I would let you do it smiling</em>’. So much so that he was entirely distracted and once she had finished, he could only stare at her with wonder and reverence and hope that she wouldn’t push him away when she placed the violin down and turned to face him.</p><p> </p><p> His eyes burned bright and fierce and blue, blue, blue and when Vanya turned to him, he raised his hand and placed it gently against her cheek and from there it was hard to say who leaned and when it began but it did.</p><p> </p><p> She kissed him and he kissed her and while Vanya caught her breath when he first touched his lips to hers, Five groaned when she bit his lip and from there Vanya was hard pressed to say how it was that when they did finally break apart, Five still had the breath to say, in his own snarky way,</p><p> </p><p> “So in case it wasn’t obvious, I really, really like you.” Vanya laughed and replied</p><p> </p><p> “In case it wasn’t obvious, I really, really like you too.”</p><p> </p><p>And they laughed and kissed and were everything they never thought they could be with someone else- unpolished and open and honest in a way that most human interactions aren’t because the human psyche and first impressions and everything dictates that we are meant to pretend to have it all together (no one ever does and to believe that we all walk alone is a lie everyone has been told and some choose to believe).</p><p> </p><p>Maybe it was because they knew each other’s minds before their pictures, their hearts and souls before their faces.</p><p> </p><p> Whatever it was, Five could only grin because maybe having an exception to all his rules and everything he considered normal was exactly what he needed.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“Vanya, how long has it been since you changed your locks?”</p><p> “Jesus Five no one’s going to rob me I’m on the second floor.”</p><p> “What, you think thieves can’t go up stairs?”</p><p> “Five-“</p><p> “Crap it’s Wednesday I’ve got to take this call, one second Vanya.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> <b>Do you have plans for New Years? </b></p><p>
  <b> There are some people who really want to meet you</b>
</p>
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